To Calgary and beyond!

Well hello there! It's Tim again! We're currently in Cochrane, Alberta. All of us here on the road team are definitely grateful to see the weather starting to warm up. Not that I don't enjoy the snow but driving for ten hours from town to town in the snow's definitely nerve wracking to say the least. Plus, I miss not having to wear four layers of clothes to stay alive.

This past week we've actually been at the same school. We've had the chance to minister to youth from junior kindergarten all the way up to grade nine. It's definitely been interesting to minister to students who've all gone to the same school. We've been doing classroom visits with the junior kindergarten students through to the grade sixes and we've done retreats for all the grade seven through nine students.

Seeing the impact God's had on the school since we got here's been amazing. Peter and I have been hosted with two of the students we ran retreats for and seeing how they've changed at home has really inspired me. Seeing that what impact God makes on them doesn't just disappear after the retreat, it follows them long afterwards. It's definitely rekindled our fires to keep doing His work.

We just ask that you keep us and our ministry in your prayers. You'll be in ours!


God bless,
Tim Elliott
Encounter One

Hello From iNFUSE 2!

Well, we have been in Edmonton for almost six months and ministry here is booming! God has been so good to us this year and I love seeing just how far the youth have come in such a short time. The youth we have coming to our nights have grown so much, both spiritually and in fellowship with one another. They really seem to enjoy and get a lot out of what we are doing here.

God truly has amazed me so much this year! I find personally that at times work can seem difficult, especially on nights when only a small amount of youth show up for youth group. Sometimes it can feel like we work super hard and don’t have a lot to show for it.  But, I have begun to notice that it is in these times that God seems to work the most.

I remember sitting with one of the youth after an event and he turned to me and said "you know those moments in life when everything is just so good and fun, when all your friends are around and everyone is happy? Those times when everything is so beautiful that it makes you want to cry? Well, I'm having one of those moments right now." I was very surprised that he said that, but when I looked around I realized how true it was. Most of the youth who came at the beginning of the year kept to themselves. It seemed that they were here for the fun. But, now it goes deeper, they want to be here because they feel welcome, accepted and loved by us and Christ. I realized that what has happened is that God has taken the little we can do and used it to touch people's hearts. How beautiful is that? God is showing me that He is always with us, that He loves us and that He is working through us.

So, even when it is hard I am learning to keep my trust in Him and allow Him to work through us to bring others to Him. God truly is good and I am so blessed to be a part of this experience!

God Bless,

Jessica

iNFUSE 2, Edmonton

Saskatche-what's up?!

Hello friends from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (try saying that three times fast, eh?). The last little bit we've been going around the diocese of Regina, Prince Albert, and Saskatoon. It's been an amazing time. Such amazing experiences have been happening around Saskatchewan, it's crazy. Just when you think God has shown you the best thing you've ever seen, BAM!!! He shows you something greater!

One retreat we had in Shellbrook, Saskatchewan, I had an amazing experience. We were in middle of our Prayer Ministry during the retreat and I'd just finished praying over the guys in my small group when one of them went up and got one of our bookmarks. We have these bookmarks with readings from the gospels marked on them (so you can read about Jesus' life in chronological order) but we'd ran out of bibles, so I ran out and got my own personal bible. I gave it to him and opened it up to Luke. I said if he had any questions, just ask me and I'll help as best as I can. He read for about thirty seconds and looked at me and asked 'Why did God send an angel to Mary and not just tell her Himself?' He was reading the Annunciation. It just so happened that that morning in personal prayer, I'd read the part of Exodus where God presented Himself on Mount Sinai to Moses and the Israelites, so the answer was fresh in my mind. I got to explain to him all about it and why God sent the Angel Gabriel. Reading his Encounter Experience Sheet later, I saw he had written this:

Today I saw that there are actually young people who not only talk the talk about the church, but walk the walk and have fun doing it. I never knew that people could both have faith and have fun. I can't wait for next year's retreat.

This really brought me a lot of joy, to see that God worked through us and into him. It's the little moments like these that truly remind us of why we do what we do, to bring youth to Christ.

God bless,
Tim Elliott
Encounter One

The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few

This is an expression in scripture I have heard a lot but I never realized how true it was until this past week. We six team members are here to build a foundation of youth ministry at Saint Thomas More. Six sounds pretty good for one parish right?

The problem being that the six of us aren't able to respond to all of the different opportunities that arise to evangelize. For example we have two high schools and two middle schools that we visit on a weekly basis. That’s hundreds of students, many of whom we simply don't have time to speak to. That’s many sports events and school celebrations we can’t go to, that’s 4 different sets of classroom presentations the six of us have to focus on in addition to already doing (this Sunday to Sunday) 5 different nights (Cornerstone, Leadership training, Conquest and Challenge, Compass, Cornerstone). We devote a full year

of our lives to do this and we still don't have enough time!

I keep getting getting into the mindset I had long before NET that makes it so easy to say ‘someone else will do it’ someone else will take up the call, someone else will evangelize this person. But I keep realizing that is completely the wrong attitude! We have so many opportunities to Love; to bear Christ’s light to the souls of so many of Edmonton’s youth. It is not a burden or a humdrum task, it is life itself! 

Josh Hickman
iNFUSE2
Edmonton Alberta

Dodgeball

Hello again!! Looking back over the past month at Saint Thomas More there have been two developments to our ministry. Firstly our visits to the Catholic schools attached to the parish has gone up from twice a week to thrice a week, and our junior high youth group Compass went from happening once a month to twice a month.

Its really exciting that we are now spending more time in ministry, which is awesome!! We go to both our high schools every week and one of the junior high's biweekly which makes building relationships so much easier. We now get to spend more time and minister our youth in their own comfortable school environment.

This past weekend we had a social night for our high school youth, we played glow in the Dark dodge-ball which was really fun with lots of time to hang out with the youth, eat some pizza and meet some new people who came out. Josh and Jessica even came as Austrian dodge ball superstars come to pump us up and they did a great job!!

Please continue to pray for us and this ministry.

Stay tuned for more on iNFUSE team 2.

God Bless,
Josh Hickman
St. Thomas More Parish
Edmonton